Monday, September 03, 2007

The Blame Game

Saturday was a debacle, and I think there's a lot of blame to go around. Some of it is ours, some of it goes elsewhere, but we have to find out who's responsible so that we can go about correcting the problems. Here are a few reasons why we think Black Saturday happened.

Geoff:

New Mix CD SucksFiona Apple? What was I thinking? IT'S DIVISION 1 FOOTBALL, it demands something stronger than that. And you can tell I gave up entirely on track ordering after "Hounds of Love".

New Season T-Shirt Possessed By The DevilI should've stuck with last year's "DOWN IN FRONT IS NOT A CHEER" shirt from the M Zone. Instead I bought this season's shirt at the M Den before kickoff. Maybe I should make some sort of burnt offering of it to appease the football gods.

Hailey LafontaineLes Miles said it best: "Never...and I mean never...have I seen such a thoroughly mediocre and pisspoor performance by a child in all aspects of her life as in Hayley Lafontaine." She's dragging our program down just by existing, and this honesty and passion are why Les Miles should coach Michigan football and win eleventy-two champeenships for us.

The EarthStupid Earth, going around the sun that extra time. We were fine up until November 18 of last year, but then the Earth must've passed through some weird radiation field that renders all attempts by Michigan to play defense entirely useless.

The Iraq

I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh... people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and... I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our
– Appalachian State student/Miss Teen South Carolina Lauren Caitlin Upton

To steal from Lewis Black, that's the kind of sentence that when you hear it, your brain comes to a screeching halt. And the left hand side of the brain looks at the right hand side and goes, "It's dark in here, and we may die." Don't! Don't think about that response for more than three minutes, or blood'll shoot out your nose. I think too many members of the football team spent too long trying to make sense of that and then all of a sudden it was the third quarter and they'd just come to.

Jerry FalwellSomehow, in time, I'm going to figure out a way to blame this on Jerry Falwell. Until then I will lean on Sports Night references like a crutch.

Craig:

The New RideFor the first time in my life, I am driving a car that is not yellow or blue. I decided in April to go with a Black Mercury Milan instead of a navy one after nine years of loyal service from the Nautic Blue Volvo S70.

Hats OffLast season, I wore my Tigers home cap to every game. This year, I switched to my Michigan football hat with the side view of the winged helmet, forgetting that was my headgear of choice in 2005.

Damn You, Jim HarbaughWhile I have several Michigan jerseys, including a pair of home #7s, old and new road #7s, a Tom Brady 2000 Orange Bowl replica (which it turns out should be a white and is a blue, but still looks good), and sewn, unlabeled #4. I wore the #4 last year, but did not want to wear it this year due to the summer of discontent.

Alumni ShowdownsMichigan is 1-3 since I started writing the alumni showdown feature with the win coming against Indiana. So that's done.

NikeI should have worn the adidas shoes to the game to appease our new corporate overlords. Instead, it was the Nikes.

Mission Statement

"But do let me reiterate the spirit of Michigan.It is based upon a deathless loyalty to Michigan and all her ways; an enthusiasm that makes it second nature for Michigan men to spread the gospel of their university to the world's distant outposts; a conviction that nowhere is there a better university, in any way, than this Michigan of ours."

--Fielding H. Yost upon his retirement as Michigan's athletic director in 1940.